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AIList Digest Volume 3 Issue 120
AIList Digest Monday, 9 Sep 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 120
Today's Topics:
Queries - Source Licenses for Common Lisp & Semantic Net Graphics &
Krypton & Children's Story Generator,
AI Tools - Prolog and Lisp,
Psychology - Misperception of Probability,
Public Service - Trojan Horses
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Date: Thu, 5 Sep 85 15:23 MST
From: May@HIS-PHOENIX-MULTICS.ARPA
Reply-to: May%pco@CISL-SERVICE-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Source Licenses for Common Lisp
We are interested in porting Common Lisp to our large system hosts
and are looking for software houses who are interested in selling
source licenses for Common Lisp that is written in either Pascal
or, preferably, C. If you know of any, please send whatever
information you can to me and I will post the responses here in
the list. Thanks. Bob May
May%pco @ cisl-service-multics
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 85 21:18:31 edt
From: Brad Miller <miller@rochester.arpa>
Subject: Wanted: Graphics Software for 3600 (Semantic Nets)
I'm doing a semantic parser, and just for hacks, want to display the
output graphically as a Semantic Net. Anyone out there hack anything
similar for the Symbolics FLAVOR system? (or the TI explorer, or LMI,
or any other degenerate case of MIT's LM) I'm a novice to this sort of
graphics, so anything likely (say a program that displays ATNs) would
be fine! I just want to get a better grasp on this stuff than the provided
examples give....
Brad Miller
miller@ur-seneca.rochester.arpa
University of Rochester CS dept.
------------------------------
Date: 6 Sep 85 09:29:00 EDT
From: "CUGINI, JOHN" <cugini@nbs-vms>
Subject: Krypton
In the October 1983 issue of IEEE's Computer, there was an
article called "Krypton: A Functional Approach to Knowledge
Representation" by Ronald Brachman, Richard Fikes, and
Hector Levesque. It described work in progress. Does anyone
out there know what became of this effort? Any follow-up
articles, etc??
John Cugini <Cugini@NBS-VMS>
Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology
National Bureau of Standards
Bldg 225 Room A-265
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
phone: (301) 921-2431
------------------------------
Date: 7 Sep 85 21:04:13 EDT
From: Steve.Hoffmann@CMU-CS-K
Subject: Children's story generator
[Forwarded from the CMU bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
Can anyone give me a reference to a story-generation program, I believe from
Schank's group at Yale, which tells stories about such characters as Joe Bear
and Irving Bird? Also, any pointers to other story generation would be
appreciated. Thank you.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1985 08:14 EDT
From: Hewitt@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Prolog and Lisp
I would like to respond to the message from Andy Freeman who sent the
following:
From: Carl E. Hewitt <HEWITT@MIT-MC.ARPA>
Prolog (like APL before it) will fail as the foundation for Artificial
Intelligence because of competition with Lisp. There are commercially
viable Prolog implementations written in Lisp but not conversely.
[...]
I believe that the Prolog implementations on Common Lisp will be just
as efficient as the stand-alone Prolog implementations. However, it
is not possible to make a commercially viable Common Lisp
implementation on Prolog. This means that any good software written
for a stand-alone Prolog system will soon appear on the Lisp Systems
but NOT vice versa. Therefore the stand alone Prolog systems will
always have impoverished software libraries by comparison with the
Common Lisp systems and will not be commercially viable in the long
run.
------------------------------
Date: Wed 4 Sep 85 21:17:20-PDT
From: Donald Henager <HENAGER@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: Misperception of Probability
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
The October issue of Science 85 has an interesting article on people's
mistaken view of probability. It starts with the results of an experiment
in which people were drilled about the advantages of seat belts, then
agreed that seat belts were great, and then drove away without their seat
belts fastened. It goes on to say:
"If you think the apparent irrationality of Slovic's subjects frustrated him,
imagine how people in the nuclear power business must feel. [This is] the
same general public whose concern for the safety of nuclear reactors -- which
have claimed a total of three lives in accidents in the last 30 years --
brought the industry to a virtual standstill. It's the same general public
that smokes billions of cigarettes a year while banning an artificial
sweetner because of a one-in-a-million chance that it might cause cancer;
the same public that eats meals full of fat, flocks to cities prone to
earthquakes, and goes hang gliding while it frets about pesticides in food,
avoidsthe ocean for fear of sharks, and breaks into a cold sweat on airline
flights.
"In short, we the general public are irrational, uninformed, super-
stitious, even stupid. We don't understand probability, are biased by the
news media, and have a fear of some technologies that borders on the
primeval."
It's an interesting article about how people think about probability and
in particular points out some catchy statistics about what is and isn't
dangerous to your life span. If you can get a copy, read it.
Don
[Although I have retitled this message "Misperception of Probability",
articles by Amos Tversky (and cited by Paul Cohen) have stressed that
people seem to base judgements on prototype similarity rather than on
probability, even when the "priors" needed for probabilistic reasoning
are presented as the major component of a problem specification. Given
that people >>want<< to reason in this manner, the misperception involved
may be that of the scientific community in assuming that people are
trying to reason probabilistically and that they are getting it wrong.
There may be valid epistemological reasons (as well as computational
ones) for prototype-based pattern recognition and reasoning. -- KIL]
------------------------------
Date: 05 Sep 85 14:37:38 EDT (Thu)
From: Marshall D. Abrams <abrams@mitre.ARPA>
Subject: WARNING !! [A Trojan Horse Bites Man]
[Forwarded from the Stanford bboard by Laws@SRI-AI.]
[Forwarded from the Info-Atari bboard by MRC@SIMTEL20.]
[Forwarded to the Info-Atari bboard by Malpass@LL-SST.]
Today's Wall St. Journal contained the following article. I think
it is of enough potential significance that I'll enter the whole thing.
In addition to the conclusions it states, it implies something about
good backup procedure discipline.
In the hope this may save someone,
Don Malpass
******************************************
(8/15/85 Wall St. Journal)
ARF! ARF!
Richard Streeter's bytes got bitten by an "Arf Arf," which isn't
a dog but a horse.
Mr. Streeter, director of development in the engineering department
of CBS Inc. and home-computer buff, was browsing recently through the
offerings of Family Ledger, a computer bulletin board that can be used by
anybody with a computer and a telephone to swap advice, games or programs -
or to make mischief. Mr. Streeter loaded into his computer a program that
was billed as enhancing his IBM program's graphics; instead it instantly wiped
out the 900 accounting, word processing and game programs he had stored in
his computer over the years. All that was left was a taunt glowing back
at him from the screen: "Arf! Arf! Got You!"
"HACKERS" STRIKE AGAIN
[...] Several variations of the "Arf! Arf!" program have made
the rounds, including one that poses as a "super-directory" that
conveniently places computer files in alphabetical order.
[...] Al Stone, the computer consultant who runs Long Island
based Family Ledger, [says] "Don't attempt to run something unless you
know its pedigree," he says.
That's good advice, because the computer pranksters are getting more
clever - and nastier. They are now creating even-more-insidious programs
that gradually eat away existing files as they are used. Appropriately
enough, these new programs are known as "worms".
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End of AIList Digest
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